Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862», страница 15

The loss of the enemy, as reported by some of their working party, was one hundred and sixteen killed. The number of wounded could not be ascertained. After the conflict had drifted away from the hill-side, some of the foe had returned to the field, taken away their wounded, and robbed our dead. The loss of the Guard was fifty-three out of one hundred and forty-eight actually engaged, twelve men having been left by Zagonyi in charge of his train. The Prairie Scouts reported a loss of thirty-one out of one hundred and thirty: half of these belonged to the Irish Dragoons. In a neighboring field an Irishman was found stark and stiff, still clinging to the hilt of his sword, which was thrust through the body of a Rebel who lay beside him. Within a few feet a second Rebel lay, shot through the head.

I have given a statement of this affair drawn from the testimony taken before a Court of Inquiry, from conversations with men who were engaged upon both sides, and from a careful examination of the locality. It was the first essay of raw troops, and yet there are few more brilliant achievements in history.

It is humiliating to be obliged to tell what followed. The heroism of the Guard was rewarded by such treatment as we blush to record. Upon their return to St. Louis, rations and forage were denied them, the men were compelled to wear the clothing soiled and torn in battle, they were promptly disbanded, and the officers retired from service. The swords which pricked the clouds and let the joyful sunshine of victory into the darkness of constant defeat are now idle. But the fame of the Guard is secure. Out from that fiery baptism they came children of the nation, and American song and story will carry their heroic triumph down to the latest generation.

MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL

To the Editors of the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Jaalam, 6th Jan., 1862.

GENTLEMEN,—I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New-Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My third grand-daughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis, (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education,) read aloud to me the excellent essay upon "Old Age," the authour of which I cannot help suspecting to be a young man who has never yet known what it was to have snow (canities morosa) upon his own roof. Dissolve frigus, large super foco ligna reponens, is a rule for the young, whose wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the best thing to keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this: that we attach a less inordinate value to our own productions, and, distrusting daily more and more our own wisdom, (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment,) do reconcile ourselves with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon Tinkham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the part of the publick, (as I have reason to know from several letters of inquiry already received,) but would also, as I think, have largely increased the circulation of your Magazine in this town. Nihil humani alienum, there is a curiosity about the affairs of our neighbours which is not only pardonable, but even commendable. But I shall abide a more fitting season.

As touching the following literary effort of Esquire Biglow, much might be profitably said on the topick of Idyllick and Pastoral Poetry, and concerning the proper distinctions to be made between them, from Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to Collins, the latest authour I know of who has emulated the classicks in the latter style. But in the time of a civil war worthy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, it may be reasonably doubted whether the publick, never too studious of serious instruction, might not consider other objects more deserving of present attention. Concerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow has adopted at my suggestion, it may not be improper to animadvert, that the name properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick in phrase, (for, though the learned are not agreed as to the particular dialect employed by Theocritus, they are universanimous both as to its rusticity and its capacity of rising now and then to the level of more elevated sentiments and expressions,) while it is also descriptive of real scenery and manners. Yet it must be admitted that the production now in question (which here and there bears perhaps too plainly the marks of my correcting hand) does partake of the nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the interlocutors therein are purely imaginary beings, and the whole is little better than [Greek: skias onar.] The plot was, as I believe, suggested by the "Twa Briggs" of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the last century, as that found its prototype in the "Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey" by Fergusson, though the metre of this latter be different by a foot in each verse. I reminded my talented young parishioner and friend that Concord Bridge had long since yielded to the edacious tooth of Time. But he answered me to this effect: that there was no greater mistake of an authour than to suppose the reader had no fancy of his own; that, if once that faculty was to be called into activity, it were better to be in for the whole sheep than the shoulder; and that he knew Concord like a book,—an expression questionable in propriety, since there are few things with which he is not more familiar than with the printed page. In proof of what he affirmed, he showed me some verses which with others he had stricken out as too much delaying the action, but which I communicate in this place because they rightly define "punkin-seed," (which Mr. Bartlett would have a kind of perch,—a creature to which I have found a rod or pole not to be so easily equivalent in our inland waters as in the books of arithmetic,) and because it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son of an excellent father, with whose acquaintance (eheu, fugaces anni!) I was formerly honoured.

 
  "But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they show,
  So much ez Em'son, Hawthorne, an' Thoreau.
  I know the village, though: was sent there once
  A-schoolin', coz to home I played the dunce;
  An' I've ben sence a-visitin' the Jedge,
  Whose garding whispers with the river's edge,
  Where I've sot mornin's, lazy as the bream,
  Whose only business is to head up-stream,
  (We call 'em punkin-seed,) or else in chat
  Along'th the Jedge, who covers with his hat
  More wit an' gumption an' shrewd Yankee sense
  Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence."
 

Concerning the subject-matter of the verses I have not the leisure at present to write so fully as I could wish, my time being occupied with the preparation of a discourse for the forthcoming bi-centenary celebration of the first settlement of Jaalam East Parish. It may gratify the publick interest to mention the circumstance, that my investigations to this end have enabled me to verify the fact (of much historick importance, and hitherto hotly debated) that Shearjashub Tarbox was the first child of white parentage born in this town, being named in his father's will under date August 7th, or 9th, 1662. It is well known that those who advocate the claims of Mehetable Goings are unable to find any trace of her existence prior to October of that year. As respects the settlement of the Mason and Slidell question, Mr. Biglow has not incorrectly stated the popular sentiment, so far as I can judge by its expression in this locality. For myself, I feel more sorrow than resentment; for I am old enough to have heard those talk of England who still, even after the unhappy estrangement, could not unschool their lips from calling her the Mother-Country. But England has insisted on ripping up old wounds, and has undone the healing work of fifty years; for nations do not reason, they only feel, and the spretae injuria formae rankles in their minds as bitterly as in that of a woman. And because this is so, I feel the more satisfaction that our Government has acted (as all Governments should, standing as they do between the people and their passions) as if it had arrived at years of discretion. There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pronounce in any language, (and I suspect they were no easier before the confusion of tongues,) but which no man or nation that cannot utter can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, I was wrong; and I am proud, that, while England played the boy, our rulers had strength enough from below and wisdom enough from above to quit themselves like men. Let us strengthen the hands of those in authority over us, and curb out own tongues,² remembering that General Wait commonly proves in the end more than a match for General Headlong, and that the Good Book ascribes safety to a multitude, indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. Let us remember and perpend the words of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome: that, "if they judged they could manage the war to more advantage by any other, he would willingly yield up his charge; but if they confided in him, they were not to make themselves his colleagues in his office, or raise reports, or criticize, his actions, but, without talking, supply him with means and assistance necessary to the carrying on of the war; for, if they proposed to command their own commander, they would render this expedition more ridiculous than the former." (Vide Plutarchum in vitâ P.E.) Let us also not forget what the same excellent authour says concerning Perseus's fear of spending money, and not permit the covetousness of Brother Jonathan to be the good-fortune of Jefferson Davis. For my own part, till I am ready to admit the Commander-in-Chief to my pulpit, I shall abstain from planning his battles. Patience is the armour of a nation; and in our desire for peace, let us never be willing to surrender the Constitution bequeathed us by fathers at least as wise as ourselves, (even with Jefferson Davis to help us,) and, with those degenerate Romans, tuta et presentia quam vetera et periculosa malle.

With respect,

Your ob't humble serv't,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

 
  I love to start out arter night's begun,
  An' all the chores about the farm are done,
  The critters milked an' foddered, gates shet fast,
  Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper past,
  An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene lamp,—
  I love, I say, to start upon a tramp,
  To shake the kinkles out o' back an' legs,
  An' kind o' rack my life off from the dregs
  Thet's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch
  Of folks thet foller in one rut too much:
  Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt;
  But 't ain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out.
 
 
  Now, bein' born in Middlesex, you know,
  There's certin spots where I like best to go:
  The Concord road, for instance, (I, for one,
  Most gin'lly ollers call it John Bull's Run.)—
  The field o' Lexin'ton, where England tried
  The fastest colors thet she ever dyed,—
  An' Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when he came,
  Found was the bee-line track to heaven an' fame,—
  Ez all roads be by natur', ef your soul
  Don't sneak thru shun-pikes so's to save the toll.
 
 
  They're 'most too fur away, take too much time
  To visit often, ef it ain't in rhyme;
  But there's a walk thet's hendier, a sight,
  An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's night,—
  I mean the round whale's-back o' Prospect Hill.
  I love to loiter there while night grows still,
  An' in the twinklin' villages about,
  Fust here, then there, the well-saved lights goes out,
  An' nary sound but watch-dogs' false alarms,
  Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy farms,
  Where some wise rooster (men act jest thet way)
  Stands to't thet moon-rise is the break o' day:
  So Mister Seward sticks a three-months pin
  Where the war'd oughto end, then tries agin;—
  My gran'ther's rule was safer'n 't is to crow:
  Don't never prophesy—onless ye know.
 
 
  I love to muse there till it kind o' seems
  Ez ef the world went eddyin' off in dreams.
  The Northwest wind thet twitches at my baird
  Blows out o' sturdier days not easy scared,
  An' the same moon thet this December shines
  Starts out the tents an' booths o' Putnam's lines;
  The rail-fence posts, acrost the hill thet runs,
  Turn ghosts o' sogers should'rin' ghosts o' guns;
  Ez wheels the sentry, glints a flash o' light
  Along the firelock won at Concord Fight,
  An' 'twixt the silences, now fur, now nigh,
  Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the low reply.
  Ez I was settin' so, it warn't long sence,
  Mixin' the perfect with the present tense,
  I heerd two voices som'ers in the air,
  Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell where:
  Voices I call 'em: 't was a kind o' sough
  Like pine-trees thet the wind is geth'rin' through;
  An', fact, I thought it was the wind a spell,—
  Then some misdoubted,—couldn't fairly tell,—
  Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel,—
  I knowed, an' didn't,—fin'lly seemed to feel
  'T was Concord Bridge a-talkin' off to kill
  With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker Hill:
  Whether't was so, or ef I only dreamed,
  I couldn't say; I tell it ez it seemed.
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  Wal, neighbor, tell us, wut's turned up thet's new?
  You're younger'n I be,—nigher Boston, tu;
  An' down to Boston, ef you take their showin',
  Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth the knowin'.
  There's sunthin' goin' on, I know: las' night
  The British sogers killed in our gret fight
  (Nigh fifty year they hedn't stirred nor spoke)
  Made sech a coil you'd thought a dam hed broke:
  Why, one he up an' beat a revellee
  With his own crossbones on a holler tree,
  Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a hive
  With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy-five.
  Wut is the news? 'T ain't good, or they'd be cheerin'.
  Speak slow an' clear, for I'm some hard o' hearin'.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
I don't know hardly ef it's good or bad,—
 

THE BRIDGE

 
At wust, it can't be wus than wut we've had.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  You know them envys thet the Rebbles sent,
  An' Cap'n Wilkes he borried o' the Trent?
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  Wut! hev they hanged 'em? Then their wits is gone!
  Thet's a sure way to make a goose a swan!
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  No: England she would hev 'em, Fee, Faw, Fum!
  (Ez though she hedn't fools enough to home,)
  So they've returned 'em—
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  Hev they? Wal, by heaven,
  Thet's the wust news I've heerd sence Seventy-seven!
  By George, I meant to say, though I declare
  It's 'most enough to make a deacon, swear.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  Now don't go off half-cock: folks never gains
  By usin' pepper-sarse instid o' brains.
  Come, neighbor, you don't understand—
 

THE BRIDGE

 
                                  How? Hey?
  Not understand? Why, wut's to hender, pray?
  Must I go huntin' round to find a chap
  To tell me when my face hez hed a slap?
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  See here: the British they found out a flaw
  In Cap'n Wilkes's readin' o' the law:
  (They make all laws, you know, an' so, o' course,
  It's nateral they should understand their force:)
  He'd oughto took the vessel into port,
  An' hed her sot on by a reg'lar court;
  She was a mail-ship, an' a steamer, tu,
  An' thet, they say, hez changed the pint o' view,
  Coz the old practice, bein' meant for sails,
  Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o' falls;
  You may take out despatches, but you mus'n't
  Take nary man—
 

THE BRIDGE

 
                   You mean to say, you dus'n't!
  Changed pint o' view! No, no,—it's overboard
  With law an' gospel, when their ox is gored!
  I tell ye, England's law, on sea an' land,
  Hez ollers ben, "I've gut the heaviest hand."
  Take nary man? Fine preachin' from her lips!
  Why, she hez taken hunderds from our ships,
  An' would agin, an' swear she hed a right to,
  Ef we warn't strong enough to be perlite to.
  Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind,
  England doos make the most onpleasant kind:
  It's you're the sinner ollers, she's the saint;
  Wut's good's all English, all thet isn't ain't;
  Wut profits her is ollers right an' just,
  An' ef you don't read Scriptur so, you must;
  She's praised herself ontil she fairly thinks
  There ain't no light in Natur when she winks;
  Hain't she the Ten Comman'ments in her pus?
  Could the world stir 'thout she went, tu, ez nus?
  She ain't like other mortals, thet's a fact:
  She never stopped the habus-corpus act,
  Nor specie payments, nor she never yet
  Cut down the int'rest on her public debt;
  She don't put down rebellions, lets 'em breed,
  An' 's ollers willin' Ireland should secede;
  She's all thet's honest, honnable, an' fair,
  An' when the vartoos died they made her heir.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  Wal, wal, two wrongs don't never make a right;
  Ef we're mistaken, own it, an' don't fight:
  For gracious' sake, hain't we enough to du
  'Thout gittin' up a fight with England, tu?
  She thinks we're rabble-rid–
 

THE BRIDGE

 
                     An' so we can't
  Distinguish 'twixt You oughtn't an' You shan't!
  She jedges by herself; she's no idear
  How 't stiddies folks to give 'em their fair sheer:
  The odds 'twixt her an' us is plain's a steeple,—
  Her People's turned to Mob, our Mob's turned People.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
She's riled jes' now–
 

THE BRIDGE

 
              Plain proof her cause ain't strong,—
  The one thet fust gits mad's most ollers wrong.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  You're ollers quick to set your back aridge,—
  Though't suits a tom-cat more 'n a sober bridge:
  Don't you git het: they thought the thing was planned;
  They'll cool off when they come to understand.
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  Ef thet's wilt you expect, you'll hev to wait:
  Folks never understand the folks they hate:
  She'll fin' some other grievance jest ez good,
  'Fore the month's out, to git misunderstood.
  England cool off! She'll do it, ef she sees
  She's run her head into a swarm o' bees.
  I ain't so prejudiced ez wut you spose:
  I hev thought England was the best thet goes;
  Remember, (no, you can't,) when I was reared,
  God save the King was all the tune you heerd:
  But it's enough to turn Wachuset roun',
  This stumpin' fellers when you think they're down.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim at law,
  The best way is to settle, an' not jaw.
  An' don't le' 's mutter 'bout the awfle bricks
  We'll give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a fix:
  That 'ere's most frequently the kin' o' talk
  Of critters can't be kicked to toe the chalk;
  Your "You'll see nex' time!" an' "Look out bimeby!"
  Most ollers ends in eatin' umble-pie.
  'T wun't pay to scringe to England: will it pay
  To fear thet meaner bully, old "They'll say"?
  Suppose they du say: words are dreffle bores,
  But they ain't quite so bad ez seventy-fours.
  Wut England wants is jest a wedge to fit
  Where it'll help to widen out our split:
  She's found her wedge, an' 't ain't for us to come
  An' lend the beetle thet's to drive it home.
  For growed-up folks like us 't would be a scandle,
  When we git sarsed, to fly right off the handle.
  England ain't all bad, coz she thinks us blind:
  Ef she can't change her skin, she can her mind;
  An' you will see her change it double-quick,
  Soon ez we've proved thet we're a-goin' to lick.
  She an' Columby's gut to be fas' friends;
  For the world prospers by their privit ends:
  'T would put the clock back all o' fifty years,
  Ef they should fall together by the ears.
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  You may be right; but hearken in your ear,—
  I'm older 'n you,—Peace wun't keep house with Fear:
  Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut to du
  Is jest to show you're up to fightin', tu.
  I recollect how sailors' rights was won
  Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin' gun:
  Why, afore thet, John Bull sot up thet he
  Hed gut a kind o' mortgage on the sea;
  You'd thought he held by Gran'ther Adam's will,
  An' ef you knuckle down, he'll think so still.
  Better thet all our ships an' all their crews
  Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless ooze,
  Each torn flag wavin' chellenge ez it went,
  An' each dumb gun a brave man's moniment,
  Than seek sech peace ez only cowards crave:
  Give me the peace of dead men or of brave!
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  I say, ole boy, it ain't the Glorious Fourth:
  You'd oughto learned 'fore this wut talk wuz worth.
  It ain't our nose thet gits put out o' jint;
  It's England thet gives up her dearest pint.
  We've gut, I tell ye now, enough to du
  In our own fem'ly fight, afore we're thru.
  I hoped, las' spring, jest arter Sumter's shame,
  When every flag-staff flapped its tethered flame,
  An' all the people, startled from their doubt,
  Come must'rin' to the flag with sech a shout,—
 
 
  I hoped to see things settled 'fore this fall,
  The Rebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, an' all;
  Then come Bull Run, an' sence then I've ben waitin'
  Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin',
  Nothin' to du but watch my shadder's trace
  Swing, like a ship at anchor, roun' my base,
  With daylight's flood an' ebb: it's gittin' slow,
  An' I 'most think we'd better let 'em go.
  I tell ye wut, this war's a-goin' to cost—
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  An' I tell you it wun't be money lost;
  Taxes milks dry, but, neighbor, you'll allow
  Thet havin' things onsettled kills the cow:
  We've gut to fix this thing for good an' all;
  It's no use buildin' wut's a-goin' to fall.
  I'm older 'n you, an' I've seen things an' men,
  An' here's wut my experience hez ben:
  Folks thet worked thorough was the ones thet thriv,
  But bad work follers ye ez long's ye live;
  You can't git red on 't; jest ez sure ez sin,
  It's ollers askin' to be done agin:
  Ef we should part, it wouldn't be a week
  'Fore your soft-soddered peace would spring aleak.
  We've turned our cuffs up, but, to put her thru,
  We must git mad an' off with jackets, tu;
  'T wun't du to think thet killin' ain't perlite,—
  You've gut to be in airnest, ef you fight;
  Why, two-thirds o' the Rebbles 'ould cut dirt,
  Ef they once thought thet Guv'ment meant to hurt;
  An' I du wish our Gin'rals hed in mind
  The folks in front more than the folks behind;
  You wun't do much ontil you think it's God,
  An' not constitoounts, thet holds the rod;
  We want some more o' Gideon's sword, I jedge,
  For proclamations hain't no gret of edge;
  There's nothin' for a cancer but the knife,
  Onless you set by 't more than by your life.
  I've seen hard times; I see a war begun
  Thet folks thet love their bellies never'd won,—
  Pharo's lean kine hung on for seven long year,—
  But when't was done, we didn't count it dear.
  Why, law an' order, honor, civil right,
  Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a fight?
  I'm older 'n you: the plough, the axe, the mill,
  All kinds o' labor an' all kinds o' skill,
  Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw,
  Ef't warn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law;
  Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes whiz,
  A screw is loose in everythin' there is:
  Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret
  An' stir 'em: take a bridge's word for thet!
  Young folks are smart, but all ain't good thet's new;
  I guess the gran'thers they knowed sunthin', tu.
 

THE MONIMENT

 
  Amen to thet! build sure in the beginning',
  An' then don't never tech the underpinnin':
  Th' older a Guv'ment is, the better 't suits;
  New ones hunt folks's corns out like new boots:
  Change jest for change is like those big hotels
  Where they shift plates, an' let ye live on smells.
 

THE BRIDGE

 
  Wal, don't give up afore the ship goes down:
  It's a stiff gale, but Providence wun't drown;
  An' God wun't leave us yet to sink or swim,
  Ef we don't fail to du wut 's right by Him.
  This land o' ourn, I tell ye, 's gut to be
  A better country than man ever see.
  I feel my sperit swellin' with a cry
  Thet seems to say, "Break forth an' prophesy!"
  O strange New World, thet yet wast never young,
  Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung,—
  Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed
  Was prowled round by the Injun's cracklin' tread,
  An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains,
  Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains,
  Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain
  With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane,—
  Thou, skilled by Freedom an' by gret events
  To pitch new States ez Old-World men pitch tents,—
  Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's plan
  Thet only manhood ever makes a man,
  An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in
  Aginst the poorest child o' Adam's kin,—
  The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay
  In fearful haste thy murdered corse away!
  I see–
 
 
      Jest here some dogs began to bark,
  So thet I lost old Concord's last remark:
  I listened long, but all I seemed to hear
  Was dead leaves goss'pin' on some birch-trees near;
  But ez they hedn't no gret things to say,
  An' said 'em often, I come right away,
  An', walkin' home'ards, jest to pass the time,
  I put some thoughts thet bothered me in rhyme:
  I hain't hed time to fairly try 'em on,
  But here they be,—it's